A Happy (Albeit Unconventional) Thanksgiving

Didn't mean for this one to get so long...a lot of detail about a little Black Friday shopping. Sorry if it bores you to tears.
Brandon got screwed over at work this year and he wound up having to work the days before and after Thanksgiving AND Christmas. I have to be grateful that he gets the actual holidays themselves off, but it squashed any chance we had to spend the holidays with family. We missed them.

So, we decided to make the best of living in Vegas and go to a buffet. Brilliant, no? No cooking, no dishes...no leftovers - a sacrifice we were willing to make in the name of endless plates of food. We had invitations from a couple of dear friends, but didn't want to impose on family time and politely declined. It was incredibly thoughtful of them to invite us, but both had lots of family in town and we didn't want to impose and rob them of precious time with family from out of town. So we decided on The Feast Buffet at the Red Rock Hotel and Casino. This morning I did some research. Should have done that first.

Turns out, they more than doubled their price for Thanksgiving and the only prices listed required a membership, which we don't have. And the cherry on top was the fact that children UNDER 2 are free. Not children 2 AND under. I couldn't help but think that perhaps they would cut us some slack since she turned two 3 weeks ago. But we didn't want to take that chance.

We speculated as to who might be open today and where we could eat. Brandon was craving a burger (not out of the ordinary) so we planned on Red Robin. YUM. Holiday hours weren't listed on the website, and when no one answered the phone we were skeptical...skeptical but hungry. So we headed in the general direction, knowing that there were plenty of eateries near there and we could hit one of those if Red Robin wasn't open. Then we drove past Carl's Jr. and saw a sign for Western Bacon Cheeseburgers (I'm lookin' at you, Dad). Not exactly turkey and stuffing, but still delicious and decidedly American. So to Carl's we went...right after stopping to get Panda Express for dinner. Not so patriotic there.

We weren't the only ones there, in fact it was surprisingly busy. I do think we were the only ones that went around the booth and listed things we were grateful for, though.
Michelle: "I'm grateful for people willing to work on Thanksgiving."
Buddy: "I'm grateful for the cow that died to make my Thanksgiving delicious."
Teagan: too busy stuffing her face with sweet potato fries to comment. We'll go with sweet potato fries.
BONUS: they're open Christmas Day, so there's that possibility next month :)

We went home for Teagan's nap but all three of us ended up taking one. Apparently you don't need to have eaten turkey to be tired on Thanksgiving! Our dear friends the Statens had invited us to dinner but told us that we'd be more than welcome to come for dessert later on as well. We couldn't turn down pumpkin cheesecake, "Elder Bednar Pie" (Katie's mum used to make berry cream pies for him when he spoke in her classes), pumpkin and coconut cream pies. Boy, did they live up to the hype. And to top it off, Katie made us plates of delicious leftovers. I'm still full. We got to spend some time with their wonderful family who made us feel right at home...and Katie tried to hide how upset she was with me that we went to a fast food establishment instead of their home to begin with. :)

We put Teagan to bed and went to the computer to research some Black Friday deals. We've been debating it for a while now, but after Family Movie Night (Madagascar 3) las week we made it official: we're going to get a new TV. Yep, our $30 college TV isn't cutting it any more. I hosted game nights a while back and one of the girls told me that my house would be great to host a movie night. Then she saw my TV. The remote IS dying, making it nigh impossible to turn the TV on and off, which gave us a kick in the direction of the 21st century. We've already heard back from Santa that he's going to do his best to bring us a new TV! Woo hoo!

Not content to wait for Santa to bring it Christmas Eve, I decided to brave Black Friday. I wasn't prepared to throw elbows or camp out for a week to snag a deal (seriously, who has that kind of time and can still afford a big screen TV?) so we searched for something less high profile than the doorbusters. We found one at Target.com and I thought I would swing by to see if they had it in store for a similar price. Brandon tried to stay up with me, but he had to work today, so he retired early, telling me he didn't know how I manage to stay up until 3. "I'll be home long before 3, my dear," said I. Little did I know...

I was planning on going at 10, after the initial rush at 9, but I was stressing out over a lightning deal on Amazon and missing out on it if I wasn't home in time. {My life is SO hard, I know.} Seasons of The Big Bang Theory were going on sale for $8 between 12:20 & 4:20 AM and I couldn't pass it up. Hours in advance, I added them to cart with the intent of refreshing the page as they went on sale to guarantee availability and pulled up the original deal page just in case I needed to start from the beginning. I'd read that some people thought the lightning deals were a sham because they were gone before they were available. Prone to anxiety, I panicked. I must have refreshed the page 100 times starting at midnight. At 12:18, my heart started to race and my palms got sweaty. I watched the clock and at the stroke of 12:20, refreshed my cart only to find that the new price wasn't reflected yet. After minutes of shaking and sweating (looking back it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but adrenaline kicked in and I HAD to do this), refreshing, adding and deleting, I finally got the right price in my cart and couldn't click 'Check Out' fast enough. Eager to see how long it took for them to sell out (as per crazy rants on Amazon's comment page) I looked at the stats. I was in the first 20%. Wow. I may have overreacted. But I'm in the Cub Scouts now, so I'm nothing if not prepared.

After having successfully completed my first (and non-confrontational) Black Friday purchase, I felt like I could conquer the world and headed out to Target. Not nearly as crazy as I thought it would be. The initial hulaballo had died down and they were restocking shelves. Scored a griddle to replace last Black Friday's griddle that I maimed a few weeks ago and great deals on movies and stuff for Teagan. The electronics section was a little too intense for me. No TV in sight. But also no pushing, no shoving. A little cart congestion, but nothing that sparked my social anxiety. I've never checked out so fast, either. They were MORE than prepared for the mass of humanity.

On fire, I decided to check out Wal-Mart. Again, no TV but a handful of super cheap movies for us to watch on our someday TV...if I ever find it. Everyone else had found their dream TV. I seemed to be the only one wandering around without a gigantic rectangular box in their cart. I couldn't help but wonder how many of them already had big TVs at home and were getting the next best thing or how many of them could actually afford to pay for it without a credit card. But it's none of my business, so I moved on. To Target again. Realizing I hadn't asked anyone about their stock in the back and thinking that I'd regret it if I didn't find out (after all, without a car seat in the back there wasn't a better time to get it) I returned.

Still no luck, but I spoke to a very nice manager there who gave me some advice on mounting it. And I found some great stuff on clearance. I'm sure the cashier wondered about me, buying dryer sheets, file folders and pillows at 2:45 in the morning. 2:45! Brandon was right! I called it a night (morning?) and headed home, unlocking the door a few minutes before 3:00. Who knew I had it in me? Well, I'm not 29 for a few more hours so it must have been the whippersnapper still in me. Panicking again that we won't see another deal like it, I pulled the proverbial trigger and bought it online before retiring for the night. A whole lotta panic last night. I'm not cut out for Black Friday. I had fun, though. Teagan didn't wake up any earlier than usual - happy birthday to me - so I got a solid 4 hours of sleep. A nap may be in order two days in a row!
Sidebar: the worst movie you could ever think to watch before going out on your own in the middle of the night? Gone. The plot centres around unsuspected girls being abducted. So I was hyper aware of the gentleman in a ski mask wandering around the Target parking lot the first time I went. He was still there the second time and I made sure to steer clear of him on my way in. Ooh, he was creepy. Then upon making my exit I noticed that he was Security. Probably scared off the bad guys as well as potential customers!

Disappointed that Brandon has to work today, so Teagan and I are on our own for my birthday...which feels just like any other day, except that all my friends are busy with family or out of town so we're just going about business as usual. So this is what it's like to be a grownup!